


When Bodies Know What To Do

by YesBothWays



Series: The Body's Intelligence Could Rival The Mind's [8]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 03:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4247577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Right after the dinner in S3 E10, Cosima goes over to talk with Shay.  They finally share their secrets with each other.  Cosima feels an intuition that something has happened to Delphine, and Shay encourages her to take it seriously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Bodies Know What To Do

Cosima caught a ride with Art, who dropped her off outside of Shay's apartment building. Shay had texted her that Delphine came to her see today and asked if she wanted to talk. Cosima asked if she wanted to meet late, and Shay said she would be up. So Cosima headed to her place when she and everyone else finished dinner.  

            The front door was held open by a stone tonight. Cosima kicked it away when she came up and let it close. Cosima texted Shay from the sidewalk and hesitated for a long moment before she went up, so that Shay could get some notice first. She carried up a pink bag of leftovers that Allison insisted on sending with her.

            Cosima felt a bit awkward still when she came to the door. She knocked very softly. Every time that Shay opened the door to her, Cosima thought, she felt totally different. She felt like their relationship was getting all mixed up. And it was her own shit that was doing this to them both. She shouldn't have gotten someone involved in all this.

            Shay opened the door. Cosima felt herself step back a bit. Shay opened the door out more to let her in.

            "Hey," Shay said.

            "Hey," Cosima said. She came in slowly. Cosima put her bag and the pink, paper bag down behind the couch.

            "Want some tea?" Shay asked.

            "Sure," Cosima said.

            Shay went into the kitchen. Cosima took off her coat and her hat. She left them on the back of the couch and came to stand in the kitchen near to Shay. She wanted to touch her but did not know whether she should. Shay put a kettle on the stove and put teabags in two mugs. Cosima brought the paper bag in with her and sat it down on the counter.

            "I brought you some leftovers," Cosima said. Shay got into the bag at once. She opened it all up, while Cosima explained what it was, including the cake.

            "Looks good," Shay said. "Thanks." She put it back together and tucked it into the fridge. Cosima stood watching her.

            "Was it okay?" Cosima asked. She felt too curious and concerned to wait. Shay looked up to see what she meant, and she said, "Delphine?"

            "Yeah, it was okay," Shay said.

            "She came to see me, too," Cosima said.

            "I've got something for you," Shay said.

            She went and got the card Delphine had given her and gave it to Cosima.   Shay waited a moment and poured the tea water. She really looked at Cosima then. Cosima took a deep breath, as she looked up from the card.

            Shay came over, as if to look at it with her. Standing this close, Cosima stood up straight and wanted to reach out and touch Shay. Shay looked over her face then moved in close to her. They hugged for a prolonged moment.

            As Shay got the mugs and led Cosima to her couch, she explained what Delphine had said when she came. Cosima put the card down on the table near their mugs. Cosima became quiet and almost overwhelmed.

            "So that does it mean?" Shay asked.

            "That I can tell you what's up with all this shit that's been happening. She put you into the system with informational privileges, gave you a level of clearance," Cosima said.

            "Is that good for bad?" Shay asked.

            "Depends on how you look at it," Cosima said. She could barely smile at her own joke. Cosima felt conflicted now that it was her own choice whether or not to tell Shay. She did not feel untrusting of Shay anymore. Now, she didn't know if she should tell Shay the truth and drag her further into all this or just leave off their relationship, take it for what it had been, and go away after tonight.

            "Did she seem weird to you?" Shay asked Cosima. She meant Delphine.

            "Weird to me about what?" Cosima said. "Us?"

            "No," Shay said, "Just, like, strange. For herself." Cosima thought about it for a moment. She felt her own body sort of sink into the couch. She felt depressed.

            "She seemed like she was grieving," Cosima said.

            "Why do you think?" Shay asked. Shay took a deep breath. She reached to get her tea and move the teabag around in the water.

            Cosima watched her for a long moment and sat quiet. She did not really know what to say. Her read on Delphine tonight felt off to her. She did not know what was happening anymore or when her own read on the situation went off course.

            "You want me to tell you stuff?" Cosima said. She looked hard at Shay's face. She must understand the severity of the situation, after what happened with Delphine the first time, Cosima knew.

            "Yes," Shay said. "Only if you want to, though. But, yes, I want to know."

            "Okay," Cosima said.

            Cosima explained as briefly as she could what was happening with Leda, Castor, and how her own illness was related. She could see that Shay felt overwhelmed by all these ideas, but she did not seem emotionally freaked out. As Cosima watched her, she knew she felt glad. People could get super weird over finding out someone was a clone. Shay did not seem to care in the slightest by Cosima's read. Shay sat quietly listening through all of it and occasionally looking over Cosima.

            When Cosima had finished, she sat on the couch with her hands on her own shoulders and her arms up by her face. She took a deep breath and let it out. Then she turned to Shay. Shay worked her lips once and sat quiet for a long moment. She looked over Cosima's body.

            "When you and I first got together, I just really wanted to be your lover," Shay said. "Even though you were clearly preoccupied with other things. And I kind of thought it would be more like grief sex between us or something," Shay said. Cosima smiled a bit and laughed. Her eyes would not smile and felt sad instead.

            "I hope it's not been that somber," Cosima said. Shay shook her head just a bit at this. She seemed to think for a moment and she took a drink of her tea.

            "No. Although, I have had some beautiful grief sex," Shay said. She gave almost a faint shrug. There were a lot of unshared secrets between them, Cosima could feel. "It just wasn't that, though, with you. Not at all. I feel like I'm more… involved with your relationship with Delphine. And I mean like beyond the death threats. Just when I'm with you, I mean. That relationship is still very much alive. It's a part of you."

            "God, I'm so sorry," Cosima said.

            Cosima felt deeply stressed for a moment. She rubbed at her forehead in a deeply uncomfortable gesture. She sat then with her hands on her hair. Shay reached and took her hand with a bit more tenderness even than usual. Cosima turned to look at her. She wasn’t angry. She seemed to be trying to sort it all out with her.

            "So tell me… how on earth did you fall for your boss?" Shay said.

            "What?" Cosima asked not understanding for a moment.

            "I mean, you hate authority," Shay said. Cosima exhaled a huff of laugh at this.

            "She worked in the lab with me during our relationship," Cosima said.

            "So you didn't say she was your boss, because she wasn't before you broke up?" Shay said.

            "Yeah," Cosima said. "She made a choice to take the job that she has now. She had to break up with me in order to take it."

            "Why?" Shay asked.

            "I guess people would notice, you know? And ask questions. You can't sleep with the product," Cosima said.

            Shay made a grimace unlike any expression she had ever seen her make before. She hated this concept. On more level than one, it looked like. She found it appalling.

            "So what's happening now?" Shay said. "Is she changing her mind?"

            "I have no idea," Cosima said. "I feel like I've been… totally off base with her just this… whole time."

            "Have you two tried to talk it out?" Shay asked.  
            "No, we pretty much avoid each other all the time," Cosima said.

            "Why?" Shay asked. Cosima took a deep breath. She did not want to admit why. Shay could tell already, though. The truth was they wouldn't be able to stay apart if they were together too much.

            "We… kissed a couple of times, recently," Cosima said. Shay looked over her face. She did not give an open enough expression for Cosima to read how she felt upon hearing this.

            "Like in a sexy way?" Shay asked her.

            Cosima felt surprised by this question. She thought that she should try to explain, since Shay wanted to know.   She thought over both times.

            "I don't know," Cosima said honestly. "Yes. No. More? It was more than that. It just got really complicated."

            "A panic kiss," Shay said. Cosima sort of laughed at this. She gave a half a shrug.

            "Uh, yeah," Cosima said. "It's just… it's too complex to explain fully."

            "It does seem that way," Shay said. She seemed lost in thought for a moment. She looked up at Cosima before she spoke.

            "You remember when you hemorrhaged here, in my tub?" Shay asked Cosima.

            Cosima just nodded, as she remembered how freaky it all was. The water made the blood look like much more than it was. Shay was really calm and sweet about it during. But she got nervous about it afterwards and asked if it was because of the sex they'd been having. Cosima convinced her it wasn't, as well as she could with a very scientific spiel. Cosima had been worried at the time it would wreck things, but it didn't. Now, after Shay reminded her of the incident, she waited to see what she had to say about it.

            "You remember the first thing you said was?" Shay asked. Cosima obviously did not remember this right away. Shay ran her hand along Cosima's arm softly. "You said, 'If I pass out or anything, call Delphine first. Tell her what happened. And then call an ambulance.'" Cosima remembered then reaching to unlock her own phone, so that Shay could call Delphine. Shay looked at Cosima for a moment.             "That wasn't really a thought, you know?" Shay said. "In that moment, when it came out that way. That was… sort of primal. She's the person you trusted the most when all of sudden you were confronted with death again."

            Cosima felt her own eyes well up and felt her lips tremble at this. She felt she had to put her face in her hands for a moment. She gave a sort of groan of pain. She felt Shay reach to hold onto her wrist. She took a deep breath and sighed, when she brought her hands down. Shay took her hand again.

            "Maybe I should tell you some things, now," Shay said. Her voice came out in almost a whisper. Cosima could tell that did not want to talk about whatever she was considered sharing with her.

            "You really don’t have to if you don't want," Cosima said.

            "It's only fair," Shay said. "If I had known what was up and how vulnerable you all felt, I would have said something about it sooner."   Cosima sat and waited for a moment.

            "I got recruited as soon as I turned eighteen. I wanted to get out of the Midwest. I was young and just, deeply self-absorbed, lost in my own worldview.

            "I did… intelligence work. Not like infiltration work on site or anything like that. I did more what you might call back of house stuff.

            "In the past, people would use code that they applied manually to protect communications. Now it's all computer encoding. You can pick up signals really easily, but you need to have people who can decode those signals on the other end. So my job involved basically getting two computers to talk to each another, so we could overhear what people were saying," Shay said.

            "That sounds horrifying," Cosima said genuinely.

            "That is the word for it," Shay said. "I ended up in a really high up office. I could tell you just small stuff about the work I did and get twenty years in a federal prison without any parole. I was making like $70,000 a week at the end. They don't even let that kind of salary hit public records."

            "Holy shit," Cosima said.

            "I am not proud of the stuff we did," Shay said. "I can tell you this, because it's not classified. This one time, I lifted a signal and decoded it. This boy was using his father's radio. Their village was bombed, and most of the adults were dead. He was in the house alone with his sisters. He was trying to call for help. No one cared when I reported it, because he was on the wrong side. The bombs were probably ours. You know what I mean?"  

            Cosima kept looking closely at Shay. Somehow, as Shay spoke, Cosima got her first feel for what Shay used to be like, when she was younger. Her face seemed to want to lose all of its expression. The depth and calm underneath it would disappear, and she would seem utterly blank. It might be read as some kind of deeply rooted sadness or apathy, but it was mostly just unreadable. She would have made a great solider in that state, Cosima thought. She reached over to touch Shay.

            "People don't get out usually when they're in that position," Shay said. "The money is too good for one thing. So when I left, I sort of tried to do it casually, stay really quiet about it. They let me go, because they had to given the contracts. But I had to sign a lot of agreements about confidentiality."

            The two of them sat in silence for a long while. Shay finished her tea and put down her mug. She sort of held her legs in close. Cosima thought she looked ashamed.

            "So you reinvented yourself after that?" Cosima said.

            "No, not right after. I was… with this guy right after I got out," Shay said. She looked more ashamed when she said this to Cosima. "He was ex-military. He was angry and radical, in words, at least, if not in any of his actions. We were really alienated and just sort of hated society together. We would go to clubs. We drank all the time. And I was doing cocaine then."

            "Was he a guy you liked?" Cosima asked.

            "No," Shay said. "Not sexually and not really that much as a friend either. He just felt like home, in some way. Both of the homes I had left, because I had hated it there."

            "Were you in the closet in the military?" Cosima asked. Shay's online profile read that she identified as a lesbian. Cosima wondered now if that was how she identified entirely.

            "It was complicated. I had some love affairs with women," Shay said. "I hadn't had any at all in high school. I wasn't very responsible about it. Except the secrecy part."

            Shay sort of stretched her body a bit and pushed back into the cushion of the couch. "When I finally decided to get out and broke it off with Daniel, I realized how terrible I really felt about, just, everything. Just… all of life, you know?" She looked at Cosima to see if she understood. Cosima felt her own eyes soften a bit at this.

            "I think I just never really checked in to my own life," Shay said. She put her hand to her face for just a moment. She looked at Cosima. "I went to sleep when I was like thirteen or something and didn't wake up until I was twenty-three. I have to stay awake now," Shay said.

            Cosima resonated with the phrase and more so with Shay's energy in this moment. Shay told Cosima briefly about moving to the city and then meeting a woman who seemed really at ease in her own body. She practiced reiki and taught yoga. So Shay got interested in holistic healing herself and found out more about it. Cosima had no idea how little Shay made from her work, especially compared with what she used to make, until she explained. The whole endeavor was more of a personal mission than anything driven by a career.

            "I ruined your practice for you somehow, though?" Cosima asked. She meant that Shay had left her job. She felt worried about why.

            "No, I was ready to leave. I just don't know what I'm going to do next," Shay said. "I got what I wanted from my work over these last four years.

            "I felt like sex was a big part of what went wrong for me, back when I was younger. I learned somehow to fundamentally betray my own body, all the time. I kept it disciplined in this way that made me alienated from myself. The last four years, everything changed. Slowly, but they did," Shay said.

            "I want to feel like someone who would never betray my own body again. And I think that I am at this point," Shay said. "I know what my body wants now." She made a gesture near her body, as if circling and feeling her own presence, and she extended her hand a moment towards Cosima, as if she were a fire giving off heat. "I can feel it."  

            Cosima sat quietly for a moment and took this all in. She shook her head. She felt terrible now about her own role in Shay's life.

            "I'm sorry I dragged you back into dangerous shit and secrecy again," Cosima said.

            "I don’t think that's your fault," Shay said.

            Cosima shook her head. She felt even more terrible about it the more she thought it over. She acted selfish when she went looking for a lover, but she had also planned to keep it light. Just sort of a sexual exchange, nothing that would draw someone into her life, or her death even, she realized.

            "I got you involved in things no one should be involved in without giving their consent," Cosima said. "I'm just not in a position to do anything but hurt people at this point in my life, honestly. Except the people already stuck in this with me."

            "I've gotten a lot more out of this than just hurt," Shay said to her. Cosima turned to look closely at her. She could feel her own frown. She could not believe Shay, even though she wanted to believe her. Shay looked over her face for a long moment.

            "I wanted a lover," Shay said simply. "That's why I was on Sapphire. I don't know how to do a relationship. I've never done that before. But I felt like I had an idea of what I could do with sex, at this point in life. I was with a good handful of people before you. And what I learned is that people have a really hard time with sex. I thought it was just me, but it's not at all. You were what I was looking for and more than I imagined I would find even when I started looking, and I honestly wasn't even sure I would find anything much at this point. The things we can do together, I knew that was possible. I just didn't know if it would ever actually happen for me. Now it has. That changes things for me."

            Cosima sat looking at Shay's expression. Cosima decided on a sort of sudden instinct to tell Shay about her near-death experience. She tried to explain it all in detail. She told her about Rachel and about Delphine being sent away. Shay looked horrified. As Cosima lay in bed alone that morning, she felt a sort of calm and unemotional intuition that she would die. Cosima tried to explain this more to Shay. She hadn't really told anyone about it before this.

            "I'm not really sure if I'm going to last the year," Cosima said. "But I think that I came back for Delphine." She looked openly at Shay as she said this. "I got a mess of pain instead. And then this happened for me. This is the best thing that's happened for me since then. Being with you made me feel alive, made my body feel like it really wanted to live again."

            Shay leaned across the couch after Cosima said this. She ran her hands over Cosima's face and down her chest. She looked closely at her. She leaned in slowly to kiss her once with a gentle and deep kiss. She stayed close and kept touching Cosima for a while afterwards. She leaned back to look at her face. And Cosima knew she would ask her something before Shay spoke.

            "Were you as closed off with Delphine about how you felt as you have been with me about it?" Shay asked.

            Cosima felt herself almost cry in response to this question. She looked at Shay. She had to reach up and rub her face after a moment. She felt a sob form in her chest. Shay just sat quietly, with her hands on Cosima, looking at her.

            "I didn't know what to say," Cosima said. Cosima heard the depths of the sadness in her own voice, as she spoke. Shay stayed in close to her. She was quiet for a long moment. Cosima gained her composure again somewhat.  

            "I think it's words that confuse people," Shay said. "When their bodies know what they should do."

            "I wish that mine knew," Cosima said.

            "Didn't you tell me that you and Delphine keep kissing?" Shay said softly to her.

            Cosima had to push a tear off her own face. She felt almost angry with the intensity of her own feelings. Shay sat there and tried to become steady and calm. Cosima felt like Shay held her own feelings up to her.

            "I'll be loath to lose having you in my own bed," Shay said. Cosima laughed softly at this and turned towards her to see her face. She looked over Cosima's face. "But I think you have to see this through." She clearly meant Delphine.

            Cosima grew distracted for a moment then. Her mind felt like a freight train passed through it too closely. She realized after a moment had passed that Shay was sitting up straighter and looking hard at her. She did not know what her body felt for just a moment. Then she felt terribly afraid for Delphine. Shay saw it happen.

            "What's happening?" Shay said. She pressed her hand to Cosima's chest. She was worried that her health was failing in some sudden crisis again.

            "It's not me," Cosima said. She sat up. She grabbed her phone out of her pocket, then she hesitated.

            "Who is it?" Shay said.

            "It's Delphine," Cosima said. She rubbed hard at her face. Shay looked almost as worried as Cosima felt. And Cosima felt her own mind resist for a moment. "Many I'm just freaking out or something," Cosima said confused.

            "Call her," Shay said. Cosima tried to call Delphine, but Delphine did not answer. Her body felt tensed, as if she were about to start into a desperate sprint.

            "Does she usually answer?" Shay asked.

            "Yeah, she always has before," Cosima said.

            "You want to go to her place?" Shay said. She was offering Cosima a ride there. She seemed very concerned.

            "I don't know where she lives anymore. No one does," Cosima said.

            "You should chase it," Shay said simply. She seemed entirely convinced that Cosima's intuition in this moment was something to be taken very seriously. That made Cosima take it more seriously herself. She dialed Sarah.

            Sarah answered. She sounded like she was asleep. She woke up more to listen, as Cosima tried awkwardly to work her way through some kind of explanation for her call. She stood up and paced near the windows as she talked. She could feel how upset she was now that she was talking to Sarah and standing. Sarah seemed both confused and yet also to take her sudden distress quite seriously, whether she understood it or not.

            "Let me just call Art, see if he can check it out or something," Sarah said.

            Cosima got off the phone with her. She tried Delphine again and knew already that she wouldn’t answer. Something was wrong. She felt absolutely sure of it now. This wasn't rational. But she didn't need any evidence to know. She waited for the call. She watched Shay get her boots on and gather her coat. She was already getting ready to take Cosima someplace when the call came.

            Sarah called her back. And Cosima stood and listened, almost unfeeling, as Sarah told her that Art said there was an attempted homicide that had just gone down. A woman was found in the parking garage of a fancy set of apartments downtown with a gunshot wound to the torso. A friend of his on duty had told him that a Delphine Cormier was in an ambulance. He knew which hospital.

            "We'll meet you there, Cos, okay?" Sarah said to her.

            "Okay," Cosima said and just hung up.

            Shay had already opened the door and stood in the doorway with the keys in her hand just from watching Cosima's face. And they rushed out together and made their way down the hall. Shay led the way to her Bug.


End file.
